Sample Questions

Toward the middle of this page are a small selection of practice test questions representative of the questions in our test bank.

Why So Many Practice Test Questions?!

The PMP certification exam is based on the Project Management Professional (PMP)® Examination Content Outline (PMP Outline). The A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), 6th edition, is a primary reference but PMI is very clear that it does not include everything noted in the PMP Outline. Another reference is PMI's Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. Further, the PMBOK® Guide, 6th edition, is aligned with ISO 21500, which in turn references ISO 16326, both providing additional content that addresses what is mentioned in the PMP Outline and ties them together.

The PMP Outline has 5 Domains, 42 Tasks, and 86 Knowledge and Skills. That is 128 topics to ask questions about. While they may overlap the PMBOK® Guide, they do not always do so and PMI makes the explicit point the test based on the PMP Exam Content Outline, not the PMBOK® Guide and also that the PMBOK® Guide does not inclusively include everything you need to know for the exam.

The PMBOK® Guide, 6th edition, has 10 knowledge areas, 5 process groups, 49 formal processes, 119 inputs and outputs, 284 tools and techniques, and 359 named deliverables. Plus there are three sections of general project management concepts and discussion.

The Project Management Institute Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct has 4 sections, each with two types of conduct, and a total of 35 clauses overall.

Further, there are 33 mathematical formulas directly included or referenced to in the PMBOK® Guide.

If we wrote one unique question for each topic, that is 1,031 questions. No one should feel comfortable in their proficiency after one question per item (e.g., Develop Project Charter process). While there is obvious overlap, it is not true for each of these 1,031 test topics.

Next consideration is the number of practice test questions for each area. Again, one is obviously too few. Ten may work for some topics but is likely not a sufficient sample set to be confident of proficiency or allow opportunity to retest without seeing duplicates. For proficiency, 25-50 questions for each topic is best. And then, to allow retest without duplicates, four times that.

Overall, 1,031 topics times 100 questions is 103,100 questions. No one will take that many, nor will we write that many! Allowing for the nine parameters we can index questions by, that means approximately 11,000 questions.

Most students, in our experience over the past eight years, take between 1,000 and 1,500 questions, some as many as nearly 4,000 (e.g., when English is a second language).

Our 10,691 questions is many times more than any other online test website. All of our questions have been peer reviewed prior to publication. If you find a question that appears to be unclear or confusing, you can immediately submit it and our team will review it and make any necessary changes. This methodology guarantees you the highest quality test questions available.

Sample Practice Test Questions

Here are several practice test questions. Answers are shared at the bottom of the page.

1. Projects are initiated by an entity external to the project, such as a sponsor, program, project management office (PMO), or a portfolio governing body chairperson or authorized representative. The project charter might include all of the following except:

Identification of stakeholders affected

Key stakeholder list

Assigned project manager, responsibility, and authority level

High-level requirements

2. Your PMO requires a cost management plan for all projects where the project manager has responsibility for estimating and controlling project costs. Which is the least likely input you would consider when carrying out the plan cost management process to develop a cost management plan?

Enterprise environmental assets

Agreements

Organizational process assets

Project charter

3. Existing and new knowledge is categorized as explicit or tacit knowledge. Which of the following is not tacit knowledge?

Insights

Experience

Know-how

Lessons learned

4. You have just been assigned as the project manager of XYZ project. You are using your personal experience, observation and skills to determine the complexity of the project. You are conducting an analysis of the interplay between diverse individuals and groups. What type of analysis is this?

System behavior

Human behavior

Ambiguity

Project behavior

5. In reviewing earned value calculations, consider a project with planned duration of 200 hours. The data date is 50 hours, the authorized budget is 200,000 dollars, the anticipated value of work completed now is 50,000 dollars, the value of the work actually completed is 75,000 dollars, and the total expenditures thus far are 60,000 dollars. What is the cost variance?

$15,000

$50,000

$60,000

$75,000

6. You are looking at the WBS which is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish project objectives and create the required deliverables. What is used to group activities to the level where work can be estimated, monitored and controlled?

Scope statement

Work package

Work block

Deliverables

7. You are working with the project team to conduct a stakeholder analysis. You are looking at a graphic representation of the gaps between the current and desired engagement levels of individual stakeholders. What are you looking at?

Sensitivity analysis

Sensitivity chart

Tornado diagram

Stakeholder engagement matrix

8. You are ordering lunch for your kid's school math competition team. Today's menu is for the neighborhood pizza parlor. You have shared four common menu choices: daily special (5 dollars), salad (15 dollars), appetizer (20 dollars), and the most expensive menu item (11 dollars). Determine the average cost using past order history (daily special, 40 percent; salad, 15 percent; appetizer, 20 percent; and most expensive menu item ___ percent.) Presuming these accounting for 100% of the order choices, what is the average cost per person?

$6.00

$6.15

$7.20

$16.80

9. Program management focuses on interdependencies between projects and between projects and programs. Which is not an interdependency between project and programs:

Managing change requests within a shared governance framework

Provide decision-making transparency

Assuring benefits realization from the program and component projects

Allocating budgets across multiple projects within the program

10. In managing project knowledge, project managers and their team might use the knowledge management tool and technique. Which is not an example of knowledge management?

Autocratic decision making

Communities of practice

Discussion forums

Virtual meetings

Answers

Question 1. Identification of stakeholders affected. Identification of stakeholders affected is typically documented in the business case whereas key stakeholders are documented in the project charter. The project charter typically contains: Project purpose; Measurable project objectives and related success criteria; High-level requirements; High-level project description, boundaries, and key deliverables; Overall project risk; Summary milestone schedule; Preapproved financial resources; Key stakeholder list; Project approval requirements (i.e., what constitutes project success, who decides the project is successful, and who signs off on the project); Project exit criteria (i.e., what are the conditions to be met in order to close or to cancel the project or phase); Assigned project manager, responsibility, and authority level; Name and authority of the sponsor or other person(s) authorizing the project charter. See PMBOK Guide, page 81.

Question 2. Agreements. Agreements are not a typical input when planning cost management. They are more relevant when determining the budget. Typical inputs for the cost management plan process includes the project charter, project management plan, enterprise environmental factors, and organizational process assets. See PMBOK Guide, page 236-237.

Question 3. Lessons learned. Explicit knowledge includes knowledge that can be readily codified using words, pictures, and numbers, such as in codified lessons learned. Tacit knowledge is personal and more difficult to express, such as beliefs, insights, experience, and "know-how". Tacit knowledge is difficult to codify. See PMBOK Guide, page 100.

Question 4. Human behavior. Human behavior is an analysis of the interplay between diverse individuals and groups. See PMBOK Guide, page 67.

Question 6. Work package. The work package is the lowest level of work within the WBS. A work package is used to group the activities where work can be estimated, monitored and controlled. PMBOK Guide, page 157.

Question 7. Stakeholder engagement matrix. The stakeholder engagement matrix contains a graphic representation of the gaps between the current and desired engagement levels of individual stakeholders. See PMBOK Guide, page 376.

Question 8. $6.15. If these four choices are the only choices, then the sum of the four's percentages must equal 100%. The sum of the first three (40 + 15 + 20) is 75, therefore, to total 100%, the last item must be 25 percent. Next, multiply and add up the probability and impact, (40 x 5) + (15 x 4) + (20 x 4) + (25 x 11) = 6.15 dollars.

Question 9. Provide decision-making transparency. This is the aim of portfolio management. Program management focuses on allocating the program scope into program components, managing interdependencies among the components of the program to best serve the program, managing program risks that may impact multiple projects in the program, resolving constraints and conflicts that affect multiple projects within the program, resolving issues between component projects and the program level, managing change requests within a shared governance framework, allocating budgets across multiple projects within the program, and assuring benefits realization from the program and component projects. See PMBOK Guide, page 14.

Additionally, our questions are written in American English by our experienced American instructors and project managers. We are an American-owned, veteran-owned company. Nearly all of our competitors are not American companies, none are veteran-owned, and/or their questions are not written in American English.